Why So Many Recruiters (Don't) Blog
Dave Lefkow of TalentSpark and author of the Director of Recruiting blog, posted an interesting blog entry in which he wondered why so many recruiters blog and then answered his own question:
- Recruiters know the hiring process better than anyone.
- Recruiters know that publishing interesting content helps them get found by employers, helps add context to their resumes and provides interesting fodder for discussion during an interview.
- Recruiters know that blogs help them connect with other people with similar interests that can help them find gigs down the road.
But I think the more interesting question is why don't more recruiters blog?
- Third Party Recruiters a/k/a TPR's a/k/a Headhunters - Many and perhaps most of the tens of thousands of headhunters run their own small recruiting businesses or work within a firm of a handful or two of people. They know their employer and candidate clients well. They are specialists and have a wealth of knowledge about their niche. Each could own their own niche by regularly blogging about topics which are either directly related to that niche or or interest to that niche. The poster child for these bloggers is Paul DeBettignies of Nerd Search, LLC, who blogs at MNHeadhunter.com and the CollegeRecruiter.com Insights by Employers Blog. If you're one of these headhunters and you're not blogging, imitate what Paul is doing. Most blogging recruiters are headhunters but the vast majority of headhunters are not yet blogging. Yet.
- Corporate Recruiters - Most of these folks work in medium to large organizations and spend most of their time sourcing rather than recruiting. Although it is often said that successful recruiters are sales people, most of the work that these folks end up having to do is more akin to the work done by accountants than by sales people. They typically don't eat what they earn and are constrained by the formal and informal rules within their large organizations. Blogging for these folks is risky and has few tangible returns. Yet a disproportionately high percentage of the stars in this world are bloggers. Just correlation or cause too? Me thinks cause too. The poster child for these bloggers is Dennis Smith of T-Mobile, who blogs at WirelessJobs.com and for the CollegeRecruiter.com Insights by Employers Blog.
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